ORLANDO, FLA – Saturday night at the Amway Center, the Orlando Solar Bears celebrated their new affiliation with the Tampa Bay Lightning with a themed night with in-game contests based on Lightning trivia along with a visit by Thunderbug and some of the Lightning’s Ice Girls. They hoped with some energy produced by a home crowd infused with Bolts fans that it would be enough to get them past the South Carolina Stingrays.
Unfortunately for the Solar Bears, the Stingrays pulled the plug and took away two points.
Orlando goalie Corbin Boes (black jersey) battles South Carolina’s Patrick Gaul for the puck during Saturday’s first period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Fed by two goals in the first period and 31 saves by netminder Angus Redmond, the visiting Stingrays (20-13-1-0) earned a 2-1 victory over Orlando (16-14-3-0) in front of an announced crowd of 6,670. Cody Donaghey scored the lone goal for the host Solar Bears, who got another strong performance from rookie goalie Corbin Boes, who made 21 saves in yet another tough loss.
“I thought we worked hard. I thought we played our systems. I thought we had a couple of good chances that we didn’t capitalize on and if we capitalize on those, I think it’s a different outcome in the game,” Donaghey said following the team’s second straight 2-1 loss at home. “Overall I didn’t think it was a bad game. Obviously we can be better. One of our flaws is [that] we kind of take our foot off the gas pedal there a little bit and that’s [South Carolina] a team that lives on turnovers so we need to limit those and stick to our game plan.”
With the Stingrays traveling from North Charleston following a home win Friday night, the Solar Bears thought they would have a decided advantage, especially during the first period. Orlando did control the shot clock, outshooting South Carolina 11-7 in the frame but the visitors came away with a two goal lead.
The Stingrays netted their first goal of the contest on just their second shot of the opening stanza at the 8:44 mark. Veteran forward Josh Gratton, a one-time NHL player playing in just his second game with South Carolina, sprang Patrick Gaul on a breakaway. Using his body to shield the puck from a fast-closing defender, Gaul made a couple of stick moves before beating Boes high to the stick side for his fifth goal of the season.
Less than five minutes later, the visitors picked up their second score of the period thanks to a perfect bounce. It came at the 13:13 mark when Jonathan Charbonneau got loose and converted the rebound of a shot by Kevin McKernan. For Charbonneau, it was his ninth of the year and as it turned out, it was the margin of victory.
“I thought we had a couple of bad bounces. We kind of had a missed communication on the first and the second one the rebound went right to their guy,” Solar Bears Head Coach and General Manager Drake Berehowsky said about the first period problems. “It’s a tough pill to swallow. We out-zone timed them in the first period by I think over three minutes so I thought we had a good first period. We had lots of shots on net but we’ve got to get there and we’ve got to create second and third opportunities.”
Orlando forward Dylan Fitze (black) looks for the puck between South Carolina defenseman Vinny Muto (left) and goalie Angus Redmond during Saturday’s second period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Redmond, who had been reassigned to the Stingrays from AHL San Diego on Wednesday, opened the second period with a great glove save on Donaghey, who had jumped up into the play. It helped South Carolina take the crowd even further out of the game until a spirited fight between Orlando’s Colby McAuley and the Stingrays Tad Kozun woke the mainly partisan audience up.
The Solar Bears fed off the energy and cut the Stingrays lead in half just past the midway point of the frame. It came off a furious push by the forward combination of Tayler Thompson, Mathieu Foget and Ryan Lough. Foget was the main catalyst, collecting his own rebound and wraping around the net. He put the puck into the crease where Lough and Donaghey were both in position to whack at the disc. After Lough got a piece of it, Donaghey finished the play off by netting his eighth goal of the season.
“I think it was Tommer [Thompson] who threw the puck in the corner. I just went in and threw it on the net and followed my play,” Donaghey explained. “Then there was a couple of guys banging away at the puck. Foges [Foget] had a wraparound on net that just kind of came on my stick [on] kind of a lucky bounce. I’m still happy to score a goal obviously but I was just going to the net hard, that’s it.”
After piling another 14 shots on Redmond in the second to extend the shot clock domination to 25-14 through forty minutes, Orlando wanted to continue that trend in the third period. The only problem was that the Stingrays defense, led by Redmond, was having none of that. It took the Solar Bears eight minutes to compile three shots on net as South Carolina was in lockdown mode.
The final frame was choppy thanks to a combined total of five penalties between the two teams. It also saw a close call for Redmond when he had to snap up the puck just before it crossed the goal line, despite the protests of the crowd who thought it had crossed. It was as close as the Solar Bears came to tying the game before the final horn sounded.
South Carolina’s Patrick Gaul (left) and Orlando’s Colby McAuley chase the puck during Saturday’s first period (Photo courtesy of Fernando Medina / Orlando Solar Bears)
Orlando managed just seven shots in the last twenty minutes, with just two coming in the final ten minutes of play. Berehowsky said that his team needs to do better getting to the net and making its own luck in tight.
“They have a good team. I’m not going to take anything away from them but we weren’t filter any pucks in there. We weren’t creating and generating second and third opportunities like I said earlier,” Berehowsky said. “Goalies for the most part, if they see the puck they’re going to be able to stop it. We have to have that net front presence which we didn’t. We’ll look at some video and we’ll fix it tomorrow.”
The game also marked the first in a Solar Bears uniform for forward Olivier Archambault, who was assigned to Orlando by AHL Syracuse. The assignment required a trade of his ECHL playing rights from Allen, which received forward Curt Gogol, defenseman Etienne Boutet (currently on a callup to AHL Stockton) and the ECHL playing rights for defenseman Sam Jardine (currently on an AHL contract with Toronto). Archambault led the Solar Bears in shots on net with six on Saturday.
Archambault saw action in just seven games with Syracuse because of an injury before being sent down. He said that with increased ice time in Orlando, he hopes to be an even bigger contributor.
“Obviously I’m not one hundred percent but it’s fun to have [more] ice time,” Archambault said. “Obviously the more ice time I going to have, I’m going to be better. I appreciate the opportunity I have here.”
Notes: Neither team connected on the power play as the Solar Bears went 0-for-4 while the Stingrays finished 0-for-5… Foget’s assist ran his current point streak to three games (1 goal, 2 assists)… With the loss, Orlando’s home record fell to 8-10-0-0 while South Carolina’s road record improved to 11-9-1-0… The Stingrays extended their mark when leading after two periods to a perfect 16-0-0-0… The teams will conclude their weekend series Sunday afternoon at 1:30 p.m. at the Amway Center. The game will be followed by a collegiate game between the club teams from the University of Central Florida and the University of South Florida.
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